… Four very different men had engaged with the deep stuff of what makes us human, in creative and honest ways.
Sydney Carter is best known for his school-assembly hymns "Lord of the Dance" and "When I Needed a Neighbour", but in "Get Carter" John Davies (re)introduced the audience to the other half of a career in protest-folk.
With help from Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies, who showcased the songs, Davies told of a man whose music was as provocative to adults as it was accessible to children.
In Carter's "The Devil" he sang "The Devil wore a Crucifix, 'The Christians they are right' The Devil said 'so let us burn A heretic tonight . . .' The stars and stripes or swastika The crescent or a star The Devil he will wear them all, no matter what they are. . ." Carter was subsequently banned from the American military hymn-book, leaving him to wonder why he had ever been included in the first place.
Describing himself as "an enthusiast, not an expert", Davies relocated the musician a long way from the school hall, and made a convincing case for reappraisal.
- from the Church Times review of Greenbelt 2014.
